Disclaimer: This has been reported after the availability of the order of the Court and not on media reports so as to give an accurate report to our readers.
Allahabad High Court: In an application under Section 482, Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC), for quashing of the summoning order, revisional order and entire criminal proceedings the Single Judge Bench of Sandeep Jain, J., allowed the application and quashed the proceedings under Sections 306, 354 and 506, Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) against the applicant school teacher. The Court held that there was no proximate nexus between the alleged acts of harassment and the suicide, no prima facie evidence of mens rea or instigation, and continuation of the prosecution would amount to abuse of process of law.
Background
In the instant case the deceased, Km. Jyoti, a Class XI student of TRM School, Modi Nagar, was allegedly harassed by the applicant, who was employed as a Physics teacher in the same school. It was alleged that the applicant made indecent gestures towards her, pressurised her to take private tuition from him, threatened to fail her in examinations, and attempted to outrage her modesty.
According to the complainant, on 25 March 2011, while the victim was appearing in an examination, the applicant entered the examination hall, snatched her answer-book, misbehaved with her, and threatened her. Another alleged incident took place on 2 April 2011. Complaints were allegedly made to the principal and police authorities. The complainant further alleged that due to continuous harassment, humiliation and defamation, the victim committed suicide on 29 July 2011 by consuming poison.
An application under Section 156(3) CrPC, was moved on 15 November 2011, pursuant to which FIR under Sections 306, 354 and 506 IPC came to be registered on 26 November 2011. During investigation, the police twice submitted final reports opining that no offence was made out, noting delay in informing the police, absence of medical treatment, and cremation of the body without post-mortem examination. Both final reports were challenged by the first informant through protest petitions, which were treated by the Magistrate as a complaint case, resulting in the summoning of the applicant on 21 October 2014. The revision preferred against the summoning order by the applicant was dismissed on 13 March 2015, whereafter the present application came to be filed challenging both the aforesaid orders.
Also Read: Bombay High Court lays down test for culpability in ‘Abetment of Suicide’ cases
Analysis
The Court observed essential parameters for invocation of Section 306 read with Section 107 IPC, and referred Prakash v. State of Maharashtra, 2024 SCC OnLine SC 3835, and Abhinav Mohan Delkar v. State of Maharashtra, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1725, wherein it was held that the sine qua non for attracting an offence under Section 306 read with Section 107 IPC, is the existence of a proximate and live link between the alleged act of abetment and the commission of suicide in other words, there must be a direct and immediate act of incitement which, in its natural and consequential chain, compels the victim to take the extreme step of suicide. The Court reiterated that to sustain a charge under Section 306 IPC, it must be proved that the accused contributed to the suicide by some direct or indirect act. Such act must be in close proximity to the commission of suicide, disclose clear mens rea to abet the offence, and place the victim in a situation where no option remained except to commit suicide.
“In order to link the act of instigation to the act of suicide, the two occurrences must be in close proximity to each other so as to form a nexus or a chain, with the act of suicide by the deceased being a direct result of the act of instigation by the accused person.”
The Court observed that even if the victim may have felt compelled to take his life on account of another person’s acts or words would not by itself establish mens rea or abetment on that other person. The determinative test is the real intention of the accused, as discernible from his conscious acts, words and surrounding circumstances, and whether such conduct was intended to drive the victim to commit suicide.
“However harsh or severe the harassment, unless there is a conscious deliberate intention, mens rea, to drive another person to suicidal death, there cannot be a finding of abetment under Section 306.”
Examining the facts of the case, the Court noted that the last alleged act of harassment took place on 2 April 2011 by the accused in the school, whereas the alleged suicide by consumption of poison, occurred on 29 July 2011, after a gap of nearly 3 months. During this period, there was admittedly no contact between the victim and the accused the victim remained with her family members, thereby negating any proximate nexus between the alleged acts and the suicide.
“It is well settled that if there is no proximity or nexus between the alleged acts of harassment which drove the victim to commit suicide and the act of suicide, then no offence of abetment or instigation to suicide is made out under Section 306 IPC.”
The Court further noted that despite the allegation of poisoning, neither was the victim taken to any hospital nor was the police informed, due to which neither panchayatnama nor post-mortem examination was conducted. Since the body was cremated by the family members without informing the authorities, the Court found no prima facie evidence existed to establish that the victim had committed suicide by consuming poison.
The Court observed that prima facie no material existed to establish mens rea or instigation on the part of the accused, and even the cause of death remained unproved. The Court further found the unexplained delay of nearly 4 months in lodging the FIR fatal to the prosecution case. It was also noted that despite the alleged incidents having occurred in a school, no independent witness, student, friend or even the principal was examined, nor was there any injury report or statement of the victim under Section 161 or Section 164 CrPC to corroborate the allegations.
Decision
The Court held that no prima facie case under Sections 306, 354 and 506 IPC was made out against the applicant, and that continuation of his prosecution would amount to an abuse of process of law. Accordingly, the application was allowed, and the proceedings in Complaint Case No. 46 of 2012, and all incidental proceedings, were quashed.
[Rahul Kushwaha v. State of U.P., Application U/S 482 No. 21503 of 2015, decided on 12-5-2026]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the petitioner: Abhilasha Singh, Ashutosh Yadav, Deepak Rana, Dharmendra Singhal, Rajesh Kumar Srivastava, S. Lal, Shivendra Raj Singhal
For the respondent: Akhilesh Chandra Shukla, Govt. Advocate, Kartikeya Bhargava, Swapnil Sinha